Adventures in Windows 7
Microsoft opened the Beta of Windows 7 up to the public over the weekend. It can be downloaded here.
Windows 7 has been misconstrued as a response to Vista’s bad press, even though it has been in development since well before Vista even shipped. However, I am sure the all hype surrounding this very early public preview (it might not even ship in its final form until 2010) is a response. Vista has generated a lot of ill will towards the Redmond giant (most of it unfounded), and Windows 7 is the latest weapon in Microsoft’s continuing campaign of ‘I’m a PC’ to win back the hearts and minds of average computer users who have swallowed all the anti Vista rhetoric.
I immediately downloaded the preview beta, since early feedback of previous builds was very positive – the preview reportedly being very functional. Since Windows 7 supposedly has much better performance that Vista, my brand new Lenovo X301 laptop (running Vista Business) seemed like the perfect donor…
I will start off by saying this: evolutionary rather than revolutionary – Vista for me is an excellent OS, and I have never understood all the bad press towards it, however Windows 7 in its current state is not as much of a drastic change as Vista was to XP – this obviously due to it coming out so soon after Vista’s release.
(Note that the Preview Beta build 7000 of Windows 7 is probably not feature complete, so I am sure there will be many changes between now and launch)
Since there are already quite a few websites and articles (which you may have read already) about what’s new in Windows 7, I will dispense with those details and move on to some of my own specific experiences with it.
The installation itself was fast and painless, giving me the option of an upgrade install, or a clean one, and I choose the later. The currently build recognized all of my laptops hardware except the finger print reader and the Intel AMT chip, so right out of the box and I was up and running. The interface will the first change you notice, and 7 sports a clean, minimalist transparent glass aero theme, a more refined version of what you find in Vista, and the new task bar (the first major overhaul since Windows 95) does work as advertised and is definitely the biggest and best upfront change in Windows 7 – and the one that has received the most ‘they’re copying OS X’ comments.
After installation was complete I did some research online about what Lenovo laptop utilities (such as the power manager, fingerprint security etc) that I could use in 7, and this page, detailing 7’s installation on a Lenovo X200, indicated that many of them work – in fact Microsoft claims that most applications designed for Vista should have no issues in 7 – proven in my case with what would usually be an issue – AVG anti-virus 8 works no problem with 7. Since 7 is using a new kernel (it is supposedly is not natively compatible with previous apps) it is obvious that there is some technical virtualization wizardry going on the background.
Most of the Lenovo utilities did work, except the fingerprint scanner software and back utilities, however 7 is quite smart, in that after I had tried to install the drivers a number of times, and tried to access the scanner in the control panel it asked if I wanted it to try and find a solution – which it did, directing me to and downloading native windows 7 drivers just released for the reader. Nice.
Once the finger print reader worked (biometrics are much more integrated into the OS in 7, the finger printer scanning option for logging in was a much faster and smoother experience than Vista) I tested out some more of the Lenovo apps, and even though it installed and ran fine, another one that was giving me problems was the power management ultility. It seemed like the Lenovo utility was conflicting with 7’s native power management, and misrepresenting the battery life left. After I removed the Lenovo app my battery life did improve, though despite the myriad of options and power modes it never seemed like the power would last as long as it did in Vista. Subsequently, as Doug mentions in the comments below, this build, 7000, is apparently not optimized for notebook use.
Now that I had all the hardware working to my liking it was time to see how it performed – Windows 7 is very fast – everything from boot up, task switching, opening programs and windows is faster than Vista and feels faster than XP – Microsoft has really done a good job of streamlining and optimizing the OS – this alone should hopeful quell many Vista naysayers performance and bloat qualms. I was initially very please and glad that I had installed 7, and felt confident that it could be my new everyday OS
However I am running Vista again on my X301 again.
Why? Well despite all the performance benefits there are 3 reasons why I decided to go back to Vista.
– Firstly the new features that the current build brings to the table, while nice, are certainly not that different from Vista (though for someone who never made the jump from XP to Vista they might be) to be must haves for me.
– The currently driver situation and power issues for me were a problem – I was missing some functionality.
– Lastly, and the deal breaker for me was one of the laptop friendly games I was playing (and that I had not completed) was Star Wars: KOTOR. This game (notorious for even having probems in Vista) did not work, period – I am sure it was an Intel video driver issue- and I couldn’t wait to see if a solution would come up since I was in the middle of the game.
My overall recommendation on Windows 7 is that it is worth a whirl on a spare machine or VM – and while being very stable and useable for general computing , there are still application and driver compatibility issues that will stay, at least a for few more builds if not right up until launch – so it’s not ready for use on your primary machine (not was it ever meant for that – it is a preview after all) – but when it does finally ship my early impression are that it will definitely deserve to be considered Microsoft’s best (if not the best) OS available today.
Hopefully the Windows 7 feature set will not be as vaporware-like and content-free as this post, eh?
Nice graphic, though. 8)
I’ve been hitting refresh every 2 minutes in anticipation.
Gotta agree that I love the graphic too!
In response to the post above rgbFilter’s hands-on with WIndows 7 will be added to this article when the author finished the article – but the pic was too good not to put up early
I’m DLing the beta now…gunna try to run it in Parallels, or possibly overwrite my XP partition in BootCamp. (more likely the latter).
I’m planning on trying it as a second partition on my Aspire. See how it runs. Just about everyone who’s done so says that it’s trumping not only Vista, but even XP (though because it’s not optimized for notebooks, there’s a 10% or so increase in battery drain).
Everybody trying the Windows 7 Beta beware — don’t let it ruin your MP3s!
http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/01/13/windows-7-beta-users-run-don-t-walk-to-download-the-mp3-patch.aspx
And so … the ‘adventure’ begins, lol…
You get what you pay for. 🙂
Seriously though, this patch is included in the initial run through of Windows Update after the Windows 7 install.
But for those who install Windows 7 on a system that doesn’t have internet access, be forewarned!
why did i switch to windows again?
Cuz you’re an impulsive contrarian. 😛
and here i thought it was to make the PC games section at futureshop relevant to my existence 🙁
iMac. One computer, 2 OSs. (Leopard, and MakeGamesWork XP.)
Ya OK but you’re still an impulsive contrarian right? Or I’ll be disappointed…
You and PC games are only relevant when you buy Left 4 Dead and join in on the carnage mon frère.
ive been thinking about it… but you play it on the 360 no?
also i want to install 7 on my netbook im gonna give you a buzz if i have any questions
Actually, L4D is the first PC game I’ve bought in years. It’s a blast. Alex convinced me when he pointed out a mod where someone is recreating the mall from the Dawn of the Dead remake. 🙂
ill buy it today then 😀
Awesome!
but i get such good deals with dell
Hmmm… what kind of deals? Numbers please! 😀
depends whats being ordered and when… we buy so much from them through our corporate account…
zero taxes and having the 3 year service plan thrown in is usually the basic deal though…
Well impulsive would be an understatement
Glad to hear it. And yeah, the PC to Mac price gap has started to really open up again. I don’t think I’ve seen it this bad since before 2000. Especially now that Apple is doing things like taking FireWire out of the low end. The Apple premium is getting bigger and bigger with less and less hardware justification.
I SO COMPLETELY AGREE!!!!
I was going to write a post about that back in November, but it’s even more evident now. And it’s beginning to piss me off.
To be fair, it’s primarily evident in the Notebook market, but the iMac is losing some of its lustre price-wise; ans an AIO, it’s still tops, but as a desktop, not so much.
And it’s especially relevant in the Notebook market where it’s annoying or impossible to add capabilities after the fact. It doesn’t cost *that* much to put FireWire in a notebook, but the opportunity cost of not having it in there is huge. So cheapo non-FireWire PC laptops were never even a part of the equation for me. It wouldn’t even matter if they cost $100. Now, the MacBook is a cheapo non-FireWire PC laptop.
Except it costs over a thousand dollars.
I gotta agree about the overly negative press on Vista. The combination of lack of drivers, and people installing it on systems that just didn’t have to power to run it helped fuel that fire.
As for Windows 7, I’ve spent a little time with it, and all the ‘regular’ stuff runs just fine, if not snappier than XP on my Aspire One. I can’t compare the power drain issue, but 10%
Over all, it feels like a polish of Vista, in that they removed some of the more legacy elements of the task bar, and improved MOST elements of the desktop.
The Start Menu is very much like Vista, but with the addition of Jump Lists, which is a great improvement. Like Recent Items on steroids, as you mouse over a program on the left hand side of the Start Menu, a Recent Items lists only relevant to that program appears to the right.
I don’t like the mixing of shortcuts and open programs in the Task Bar, and apparently I’m not the only one. I went looking for the official name for Jump Lists, and found it at Paul Thurrott’s website. Within the same paragraph talking about the Jump Lists, he too doesn’t like the mixed Task Bar.
Ever since Vista, I’ve gotten into the habit of hitting the Windows key and typing what I’m looking for, so the Task Bar as yet another place to pin icons seems mostly irrelevant to me. Luckily they’re removed with a quick right click.
Even Aero is running fine on the Aspire One. Although I’m keeping XP on the drive as well, I think Windows 7 is going to be the default OS.
Good overview, and I highly endorse the Thurrott link for anyone interested in digging into the guts of the new OS.
PS: I have to look for other themes though. It’s TOO blue. 🙂
Dang.
Oh sure, go ahead and post something actually substantive to this thread. Spoilsport! 8)
Oh wait — drsquid updated the whole damn post. Oooo, fishy!!
We’re crafty like that. I even bumped the reply level to 6. 🙂
Looks like the OSX influence is somewhat unapologetic, but who cares, as long as it makes for a better user experience…which, according to Doug, it doesn’t.
I look forward to trying it out. Hopefully it will work in Parallels (not quite ready to overwrite XP just yet :D), but I’ve been having some trouble getting it…understandably the MS servier is jammed, but all the mirrors I’ve tried keep timing out on me. Weird.